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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26391874">Here at the End of the World</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber'>Slumber</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Zombie Apocalypse, Gen, Inferi</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2011-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2011-10-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:55:03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,056</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26391874</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slumber/pseuds/Slumber</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When we found her, she was nearly unrecognizable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>30-minute Writer's Block Challenge</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Here at the End of the World</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When we found her, she was nearly unrecognizable. </p><p>Her hair was cut short. Ragged, jagged, dirty. It was clumped in places and matted in others, tied into a ponytail where the length would let it. She didn't look like she cared. She never did. Her cheeks were streaked with dirt, her fingernails caked with mud and what looked like, but couldn't have been, dried blood. She had bruises on her arms, bags under her eyes, which were guileless as ever. </p><p>At least some things never changed.</p><p>We were hidden in the Shrieking Shack, of all places. It was hers now, and I had cast what little protective wards I knew to keep us safe. She'd only shaken her head, tapped her ear. We would listen, was her signal. We would be safer alert. </p><p>There wasn't much in the room. In one corner lay a threadbare blanket, a leather satchel, a jug that had seen better days. There was a bit of food in one of the bags, I knew, but despite my grumbling appetite, didn't ask her which bag. She wouldn't offer, with good reason. We all needed it just as much.</p><p>When she spoke it was but a wisp of a whisper, grave as a warning.</p><p>"I don't know how it happened," she said. "I don't know how it began." </p><p>She took out her longblade then, a curved cut of steel that glimmered more than anything in the room. With her wand she murmured a long-forgotten spell to sharpen it, and then she went on.</p><p>"All I know is you've got to be careful. These aren't Inferi we're dealing with anymore."</p><p>Beside me, Hermione bristled. "They <i>look</i> like--"</p><p>"Zombies," she said. "They're zombies."</p><p>"There aren't any zombies up <i>here</i>," Hermione argued. She still liked doing that, even now at the end of the world. "In the African continent, maybe, but those instances are fairly often well-controlled, isolated early--"</p><p>"Don't you think that's why we were so unprepared for them? Because we were expecting to use what defeats Inferi to defeat them as well?"</p><p>Hermione blinked with a sudden look of understanding. I didn't see her very often with that look, least of all one that she got from someone else and not from her own reading or research. "Fire charms don't work on zombies," she breathed. "We've been using--"</p><p>"Exactly."</p><p>"Fiendfyre or Incendio and they don't--"</p><p>"So many wizards have died." She looked, for a moment, sorry. "It isn't very hard to make zombies though, not today. All you need is for an Inferi to bite a wizard."</p><p>"But why haven't they figured out yet? If <i>you</i> know, why don't others?"</p><p>"Others do know, Hermione," she said then. Her tone is careful and evenly toned, but there was a brittleness to it that I have never heard before. She went back to her longblade, sharpening it as she spoke. Her hand never shook but I suspected it almost did. "But no one is ready for what it takes to live."</p><p>"The sword?" Hermione ventured.</p><p>"Harry told me once," I told her, speaking up for the first time I was there. "He said the zombie games his cousin had made you cut off their heads."</p><p>"The brains need to be disconnected to the rest of the body," she said. "That's all. You don't need to cut off the head, although that's often found to be the most effective."</p><p>We sat there in silence for what might have been ages. Hermione and I have been on the run since the outbreak, fleeing as opposed to fighting. We've managed because she's smart and I guess, if it comes down to it after all, I can be useful too. We haven't heard from Harry or Ginny in a while--when we got to their house it had been vacated. Our owls haven't been returned. Guess they couldn't find anyone they wanted, either, or Harry and Ginny must have gone underground.</p><p>We hoped they went underground. It's a better thought than the other possibility.</p><p>But we were tired of running. We were tired of hiding. The Ministry was in shambles--the Aurors they sent to protect us against the zombies thought they were going up against an Inferi army and acted accordingly. Acted recklessly, stupidly, and now it seemed there would be no end in sight. We've taken to hiding out in abandoned houses in the middle of nowhere, or caves deep in the forests, with one of us awake at all times. In one of these caves we were told there was someone who knew what to do. That we should see her if we could find our way to the Shrieking Shack.</p><p>We were all the way in a forest by London, then. We were so far from Hogsmeade.</p><p>It took us a few days, but I cut off a sturdy branch, and Hermione, oh bloody brilliant girl that she was--we had no books but we had her brains, and we didn't know the spell to make brooms fly but she came up with it herself. A charm for our branch, and it was good enough to fit us both, and we made it here. We didn't know what we would find, or what we would hear, but as it turned out, it was this.</p><p>"So what should we do?" Hermione asked. She'd tied her hair in a tired ponytail, the frizzy curls framing her face. She was just as ragged, just as exhausted, and we just wanted this whole thing to end already.</p><p>"We've got to fight, haven't we?" she asked back. "They've closed the borders; all of England is infected. What else is there to do?"</p><p>"But that's--"</p><p>"Shh." Luna's eyes, large and watery blue but no longer as innocent, darted outside. She pressed her index finger against her lips and she sat there, listening.</p><p>So did we. From outside I could hear nothing, really. Just the faint rustling of the leaves, the howling of the wind.</p><p>No.</p><p>The moaning of the wind. The warning of the dead.</p><p>"They're here," she said, glancing at us gravely. She grabbed two spoons from her bag, Transfigured them into longswords as well. "What do you want to do?" she asked.</p><p>I looked at Hermione. Did we have a choice at this point? </p><p>"We're going to fight," I said.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Please consider donating to local organizations who support trans individuals in your area.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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